13-year old invents improved version of the Hyperloop

A 13-year-old student from New York has invented a version of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop idea, which is more eco-friendly and economical than Musk’s.

Caroline Crouchley’s idea, which won second place in the 2019 3M Young Scientist Challenge, is a sustainable model for public transportation with no need for trains with diesel engines or electric motors.

She told CNBC that her dad and brother take the train to Manhattan every day, ‘so its a big part of my life’.

Caroline Crouchley at the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Image credit: Caroline Crouchley

Her idea is to build pneumatic tubes alongside existing train tracks. Magnetised shuttles would travel through these vacuum tubes, connected via a magnetic arm to trains travelling on the existing tracks.

This system would make use of current networks of train track, which would cut infrastructure costs and, says Crouchley, eradicate the possible safety risk of propelling passengers in a vacuum.

‘I pinpointed transportation as something I wanted to work on because if we can make trains more efficient, then we can eliminate the amount of cars, trucks and buses on the road,’ Crouchley told CNN Travel.

Image credit: Caroline Crouchley

She wants to make her train a reality and begin a conversation about redesigning existing infrastructure to shift to a sustainable future. Referring to Musk’s Hyperloop she says, ‘What is needed are gradual steps. I see my project as a more practical leap right now from where we are to where we need to go.’

According to CNN Travel, the next step to making her Hyperloop dream a reality is to build a larger model to test the concept on a bigger scale.

‘My advice for people who are building something is that it most likely going to break or get messed up or not work the way you want it too but its all part of the learning so you have to keep going at it,’ says Crouchley.

Also read: Hyperloop: the future of travel

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